Saudi border guards killed hundreds of Ethiopians at Yemen border, Human Rights Watch says

Human Rights Watch report alleges Saudi forces killed unarmed migrants who were trying to cross from Yemen

Rights group said it spoke to 38 Ethiopian migrants who said they saw Saudi guards shoot at migrants or launch explosives at groups

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Employees of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) assist Ethiopian migrants to board a ship repatriating them home in Yemen’s rebel-held Red Sea port of Hodeida in 2018. File photo: AFP

Published: 2:39pm, 21 Aug 2023Updated: 2:39pm, 21 Aug 2023

Border guards in Saudi Arabia have fired machine guns and launched mortars at Ethiopians trying to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, likely killing hundreds of the unarmed migrants in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Monday.

The rights group cited eyewitness reports of attacks by troops and images that showed dead bodies and burial sites on migrant routes, saying the death toll could even be “possibly thousands”.

The United Nations has already questioned Saudi Arabia about its troops opening fire on the migrants in an escalating pattern of attacks along its southern border with war-torn Yemen.

Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment from Associated Press, but has previously denied its troops killed migrants. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling migrants over the border, also did not respond to requests for comment.

The civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has displaced tens of thousands of people. File photo: AFP

Some 750,000 Ethiopians live in Saudi Arabia, with as many as 450,000 likely having entered the kingdom without authorisation, according to 2022 statistics from the International Organisation for Migration.